The lesson from Rojava: Why the Kurds need a security and strategy council

For decades, the call for a Kurdish National Congress has recurred in political and intellectual debates within Kurdish society. It symbolizes aspirations for national unity, collective self-determination, and political sovereignty. Yet historical experience demonstrates with striking clarity that all previous attempts to establish such a congress have either failed or produced no lasting political impact. This repeated failure is not the result of a lack of political will. Rather, it reflects deep structural, geopolitical, and institutional constraints that render a national congress today not only complex and slow to materialize, but largely impractical as an effective political instrument.

One of the core reasons lies in the historically entrenched territorial fragmentation of Kurdistan. Since the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, Kurdistan has ceased to exist as a unified political subject and has been divided among four sovereign states: Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. This division is not merely territorial; it has generated profoundly divergent political, legal, and security environments. While institutional autonomy exists in northern Iraq, Kurdish political activity in Turkey and Iran is largely criminalized, and in Syria it remains highly contingent on unstable and shifting power configurations. A national congress, however, presupposes a shared political space, legal safeguards, and predictable conditions for collective decision-making. These prerequisites are currently absent. Any unified national body would inevitably expose certain parts of Kurdistan to heightened political risk while structurally constraining others.

Internal fragmentation further weakens collective political capacity

Beyond territorial division, Kurdish politics is marked by significant party-political fragmentation. Divergent ideological traditions, unresolved historical conflicts, external alliances, and competing power interests continue to shape relations among Kurdish parties. Institutional mechanisms capable of integrating dissent and managing conflict in a sustained and constructive manner remain underdeveloped. Under such conditions, a national congress would struggle to function as a neutral forum for consensus-building. Instead, it would likely become a symbolically charged arena of party competition, in which disputes over representation, legitimacy, and leadership would produce paralysis rather than unity.

Kurdish politics therefore operates across four states under fundamentally different - and often repressive - conditions, while remaining internally fragmented at the same time. A national congress requires a shared political space and effective mechanisms of integration, both of which are currently lacking. Under these circumstances, such a body would be more likely to concentrate conflicts than to resolve them.

External pressure reinforces internal divisions and constrains institutional options

These internal challenges are further intensified by sustained external pressure. Iran, Iraq, Syria and Syria, despite their mutual rivalries, share a structural interest in preventing Kurdish national institutionalization. Based on the context, this interest is pursued through repression, political manipulation, military intervention, or the deliberate instrumentalization of intra-Kurdish divisions. This regional dynamic is compounded by the interest-driven policies of international actors such as the European states, Russia and the United States, whose engagement with Kurdish actors is shaped primarily by strategic utility rather than durable partnership.

The experience of Northeast Syria (Rojava) demonstrates that neither democratic credentials nor military contribution provide lasting protection when they conflict with broader geopolitical priorities.

Symbolic unity cannot substitute for strategic coordination

Against this backdrop, the classical national congress appears poorly suited to the political realities of a fragmented and transnational context. A common counterargument is that abandoning the immediate goal of a national congress risks weakening the symbolic claim to Kurdish national unity. Yet historical experience suggests the opposite: when institutional form outpaces political capacity, symbols lose credibility.

In this sense, postponing a national congress does not dilute the idea of unity but protects it from premature institutionalization. National congresses tend to respond after critical developments have already occurred, generating declarations, resolutions, and symbolic unity while lacking operational instruments for crisis prevention or timely intervention. The escalations in Rojava, Shingal (Sinjar), and Kobane illustrate that political effectiveness in moments of acute crisis depends less on representational symbolism than on rapid coordination, strategic analysis, and international engagement. A national congress would have been unable to prevent or decisively influence these dynamics.

Regional and international actors share a structural interest in preventing Kurdish national institutionalization, while national congresses themselves are slow and operationally weak. The lesson from recent crises is clear: symbolic unity cannot replace strategic capacity.

A Kurdish security and strategy council

This analysis points toward the need for alternative institutional models that better reflect the realities of Kurdish politics. In this context, a Kurdish security and strategy council represents a more realistic and functionally effective option. Its legitimacy and effectiveness depend on operating not against, but with the explicit consent and active participation of Kurdish parties, movements, and relevant institutions.

Unlike a national congress, a Kurdish security and strategy council would not be designed for symbolic representation, but intended as a permanent structure for strategic coordination and analysis. It neither claims the role of an exile government nor aspires to state-like authority, but instead functions as a transnational platform for enhancing collective political capacity.

Functional coordination matters more than symbolic representation

The primary task of the security and strategy council would be the early analysis of political developments, systematic risk assessment, and the networking of Kurdish actors across territorial and party-political boundaries. Critics may argue that a body without formal decision-making power risks political irrelevance. However, in fragmented and highly constrained political environments, influence rarely derives from formal authority alone. Rather, it emerges from the ability to coordinate actors, shape agendas, and intervene at critical moments before political or military dynamics become irreversible.

The council’s legitimacy derives not from formal representation, but from practical performance and from a jointly conferred political mandate by Kurdish parties and institutions. A further concern is the potential for elitism or democratic opacity. This risk can be mitigated through the Council’s limited mandate, its lack of formal decision-making authority, and its accountability to the parties and organizations that grant its mandate. Transparency toward these actors, rather than public spectacle, becomes the central mechanism of control.

This mandate does not entail a transfer of political sovereignty. It represents a clearly limited delegation of specific functions. Political parties remain the primary actors in shaping political will, making programmatic decisions, and mobilizing society. The Council, by contrast, assumes a coordinating, mediating, and analytical role.

Pluralism is a source of strength, not weakness

The Council’s plural composition - bringing together political actors, civil society, religious and cultural authorities, academic experts, and the Kurdish diaspora - is designed to prevent party dominance while strengthening comprehensive situational analysis. Rather than replacing existing institutions, the Council complements them by enhancing collective strategic capacity.

Instead of symbolic, large-scale institutions, Kurdish politics requires functional and operational structures. A Kurdish security and strategy council is not a substitute for a state, but a transnational mechanism for coordination and analysis. Its effectiveness rests on cooperation, consent, and shared responsibility.

The practical difference between a security and strategy council and a national congress

In its mode of operation, a security and strategy council differs fundamentally from a national congress. Its mandate is functional rather than hierarchical and is clearly limited in both scope and duration. It has no authority to issue directives to political parties and does not make binding political decisions. Its authority stems from trust, transparency toward its mandating actors, and its ability to facilitate workable processes of understanding in complex and conflict-prone environments. The council operates continuously rather than episodically, prioritizes confidentiality over public visibility, and focuses on solutions rather than symbolic gestures. Its core objective is to identify and exploit political windows of opportunity before military escalations create irreversible realities.

From a political science perspective, this model aligns more closely with contemporary governance approaches than with classical nation-state institutions. In fragmented and transnational political spaces, flexible networks, councils, and coordination mechanisms have repeatedly proven more effective than rigid, centralized bodies. The Kurdish security and strategy council acknowledges the reality of a divided Kurdistan without abandoning the normative aspiration for national unity. Within this framework, unity is understood not as a formal endpoint but as a gradual process of political convergence.

This is not the time for a national congress, but for building proximity and trust

In this light, the Kurdish guiding principle gains renewed relevance: “Dem ne dema konferensa netewî ye, lê dema nêzîkbûneke nû ye.” The central challenge facing Kurdish politics today is not the formal establishment of a national congress, but the cultivation of trust, institutional proximity, and reliable cooperation. A premature congress would raise expectations that cannot be structurally fulfilled, as past experiences demonstrate, thereby increasing the risk of political frustration and moral disillusionment.

A Kurdish security and strategy council is therefore not an endpoint, but a necessary intermediate step in a process of political maturation. Only when Kurdish actors succeed in integrating differences on a sustained basis, embracing necessary transformations, and cooperating continuously across territorial and party-political boundaries can the question of a national congress be revisited in a meaningful and realistic manner.

Strategic mplications

The implications of this analysis extend beyond institutional design and speak directly to strategic choice. Persisting in the pursuit of a national congress under current conditions risks repeating a familiar pattern: high symbolic expectations followed by political disappointment and institutional paralysis. Such outcomes weaken credibility, both internally among Kurdish constituencies and externally among international actors.

By contrast, a Kurdish security and strategy council offers a path toward incremental yet tangible political capacity-building. Its strategic value lies not in grand declarations but in its ability to stabilize communication, reduce intra-Kurdish friction, and enhance collective responsiveness in moments of crisis. Over time, this form of structured cooperation can generate the trust, routines, and shared analytical frameworks that larger institutional projects require.

For international actors, a functioning security and strategy council would provide a more coherent and reliable interlocutor than ad hoc coalitions or episodic congresses. For Kurdish politics itself, it represents a shift from reactive symbolism toward anticipatory governance. The strategic implication is therefore clear: political maturity under conditions of fragmentation depends less on institutional grandeur than on functional coordination. In the current geopolitical environment, the capacity to act together consistently and strategically matters more than the formal claim to unity.